By Lansana Fofana
FREETOWN, May 19 1998 (IPS)

Liberia, accused of permitting Sierra Leonean dissidents to cross into their country and stage attacks there, is now trying to improve its tense relations with its neighbour.

To this end, Liberian President Charles Taylor sent a 14-member high-level delegation here over the weekend to discuss how to achieve peace along the border and his envoys were at pains to deny the reports that they were assisting forces opposed to the Sierra Loenean government.

“The Liberian government, as a matter of policy, would not permit its territory to be used for destablisation of any neighbouring country,” said a statement, read here by senator Kekura Kpoto.

To demonstrate Liberia’s will to maintain the peace, Kpoto said Taylor has approved the deployment of a military observer unit of ECOMOG (the West African intervention force) and the United Nations at the Liberia/Sierra Leone border.

“President Taylor hopes that this move would help discourage continous false allegations against his government,” said the statement.

Sierra Leone was crippled by a rebel war in 1991-1996. An agreement between the state and the leader of the rebels had brought some hope for peace. However, President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah was overthrown in May 1997 by a military junta which, in turn was chased out of Freetown two months ago by ECOMOG troops.

Many in top political circles here appear to be wary of Taylor, and some are also enraged by a call by Liberia for an immediate end to the hostilities between the belligerents. “Dialogue is the only way through which lasting peace could be achieved in Sierra Leone,” ran a Liberian statement.

Reacting to the statement, Sierra Leone’s Presidential Affairs Minister Momodu Koroma, told IPS Taylor’s offer “is just another hoax.”

“We know Charles Taylor for such antics,” said Koroma. “I believe he is making such offers because the battle against junta troops has closed in on the eastern district of Kailahun, which shares a border with Liberia.”

Like Koroma, many Sierra Leoneans opine that the Liberian authorities are becoming rattled by the changing tide of the Sierra Leonean conflict. “Taylor is talking nonsense,” remarked farmer Mustapha Sillah from Makeni, the northern regional capital.

“He is calling for a cease-fire so that in the interim, he would send more Liberian rebels across the border to help the military junta in its counter-insurgency campaigns,” Sillah added.

Civil servant, Abdulai Fofana, who lost three members of his family in gruesome rebel massacres, said: “The battle is almost over, ECOMOG should not relent in its push against the junta bandits.”

In the past couple of weeks, there has been growing evidence of Liberian involvement in the conflict here. ECOMOG troops have captured and detained well over 50 Liberian rebels during combats, and all are being held at the Freetown Maximum Security prison.

Liberia has, however, denied any involvement in Sierra Leone. “We don’t have any interest whatsoever in the Sierra Leonean crisis and we intend to stay out of it, completely,” said Liberia’s Defence Minister, Daniel Chea.

Since the outbreak of a civil war in March 1991, the Sierra Leonean authorities have often accused Liberia of supporting the insurgents.

Seven years on, political observers believe this hostile relationship may be far from over and Sierra Leone’s President, Ahmed Tejan Kabbah, has approved a plan to set up “a small, but highly trained and competent army to secure our borders and resist any foreign aggression.”

Kabbah has also welcomed Taylor’s call for the deployment of an observer mission on the border to monitor, report and stop all illegal military movement along the border.

Presidential spokesman Septimus Kaikai said the move was welcomed “as long as it is aimed at bringing peace to the sub- region.”

“This buffer would be very necessary to lessen tensions on the border and to put an end to the claims and counter-allegations of insurgency,” said another Kabbah aide.

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